


On a Quiet Night

by mooglecharm (morphaileffect)



Series: CottageCor [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Mentioned Noctis Lucis Caelum, Music, No Plot/Plotless, Older Ignis Scientia, One Shot, Retired Cor Leonis, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26676445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/mooglecharm
Summary: After dinner, Cor liked to sit out in the front garden, sometimes with an old acoustic guitar.He wasn’t an expert in playing it by any means, and he worried that his guest would be annoyed by the amateurish playing and singing...but the moon was full, the sky was clear, the night wind was warm, and the fireflies were out.If there was something he needed, he made it himself. That was the rule.So, on nights as damn close to perfect as this one was, he made his own music.
Relationships: Cor Leonis/Ignis Scientia
Series: CottageCor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933300
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20
Collections: CottageCor





	On a Quiet Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mdseiran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdseiran/gifts).



> I learned late in the game that Matthew Mercer sings. So imagine his awesome voice for Cor singing your favorite acoustic guitar ballad here :D

Ignis was unobtrusive - or at least, tried hard to be. In the end, Cor saw no need to change most of his routines just because he had a guest.

After dinner, Cor liked to sit out in the front garden, where he raised flowers, and surrounded himself with the scent of the night bloomers. This relaxed him more than the tea he sometimes brewed from some of those flowers.

What relaxed him even more was when he brought a beat-up old acoustic guitar out with him.

He wasn’t an expert in playing it by any means, and he worried that his guest would be annoyed by the amateurish playing and singing...

But the moon was full, the sky was clear, the night wind was warm, and the fireflies were out. It was too beautiful a night to spend quietly indoors.

If there was something he needed, he made it himself. That was the rule.

So, on nights as damn close to perfect as this one was, he made his own music.

He played a simple old ballad, strumming and singing softly so as not to disturb his guest too much...though he was sure Ignis could hear it from within the house. The man had superhuman hearing. He could hear larger demons stalking their perimeter, a significant distance from the cottage. He could even hear blackworms chewing into the cabbages Cor grew in the backyard, when the farmer himself couldn’t spot a single sign of them.

So, it stood to reason that Ignis would step out into the front yard to see what the commotion was about, even before he could finish the song.

Cor stilled his hands immediately. “Sorry if my noise bothered you,” he greeted.

“It was no bother,” Ignis replied. “And it was definitely not noise. I just didn’t know there was a musical instrument in the house.”

He couldn’t have known, of course. Cor kept it in his room, which Ignis never entered.

“It was my uncle’s,” he explained. “Over the years, it’s seen some damage. I’ve tried to repair it, but since I’m not a luthier...the sound just isn’t the same.”

“It sounds fine. And you play and sing very well, Marsh--Cor.”

Cor let out a small breath. Someday, Ignis was going to tire of noticing and praising each new thing he discovered about Cor. A part of Cor wished that day would come soon. He didn’t want to get too used to it.

(At least Ignis was already training himself to not think of him as a Marshall anymore, although Cor imagined it was a hard vision to shake. The last time Ignis laid eyes on him, he still had a sword beside him at all times.)

“There used to be a victrola here,” Cor said, to change the topic.“An old-fashioned one you had to operate by crank. And a trove of records to play. But...”

_But I wasn’t able to visit this cottage for a long time, after the chaos of the King’s disappearance. Monsters had ravaged this place and I’d had to rebuild, salvaging as much as I could. Many things ended up being beyond repair, but not this guitar._

All things Ignis didn’t need to know.

“...well. None of that is around anymore. That would have made for better music.”

“An old-fashioned victrola,” Ignis thoughtfully echoed. “I wish I could have seen one of those.”

Right - traditional victrolas went out of fashion in Insomnia decades before Cor was born. They must have been phased out altogether by the time Ignis came into the world.

Ignis was young...much younger than he sounded and behaved. Sometimes Cor forgot that.

He decided to change the topic again. He held out his guitar to Ignis. “Want to try playing a tune?”

“Oh.” Ignis stepped back, reluctant. “I couldn’t...”

“It’s all right.” Cor got up off the chair, laid a hand on Ignis’ shoulder. “Would be good for it to remember the feel of other hands besides mine.”

(If they were going to be technical, _everything_ in Cor’s cottage thirsted for the touch of other hands besides his. But there was no way to tell another person that without making it sound like innuendo.

(And Cor, regardless of whatever else he might have been called in the past, was a gentleman.)

Ignis, recognizing that it would cost him nothing to oblige his host, took the instrument and sat on the chair in Cor’s place. Cor stood behind him, hands planted on the backrest.

“You’ll want to try some simple chords first,” he said to his guest. “Here...”

He took Ignis’ left hand, which rested on the neck of the instrument. Carefully, lightly, he positioned Ignis’ fingers to form a chord.

Ignis’ fingers were long and slim. And though heavily scarred, they were not as callused as Cor might have imagined they were. They felt cool to the touch, almost ghostlike.

“Try strumming.”

Ignis obliged again. A light strum. Tentative.

“Keep your left hand in that position. I’m going to teach you something.”

He bent down further, used his own right hand to start plucking some of the strings.

Ignis’ head tilted ever so slightly, and Cor’s impulse was to think he was leaning away from him.

He was, after all, bending down low enough for his breath to tickle Ignis’ ear and the side of his neck.

So Cor straightened up. Cleared his throat as a subtle apology.

“Can you repeat that?” he asked.

After a second’s hesitation, Ignis replicated Cor’s plucking _exactly_.

(Cor had a moment’s flashback to when he was introduced to Ignis - then a teenager ready to enter the Crownsguard. He thought little of the lean, willowy child with tired but determined green eyes - Cor could tell he was more a scholar than a warrior, though with a warrior’s spirit.

(He had never trained Ignis himself. As a Crownsguard officer, he had duties beyond training cadets - though he had spared some of his valuable time to train the Prince, and Gladiolus Amicitia, son of the Crownsguard’s head, in different things. It was only after the evacuation to Lestallum that he dedicated his time to training recruits in earnest.

(He had found a sort of niche in teaching, in his advanced age. He sort of wished now that he had discovered it sooner. Then maybe he and remarkable young people like Ignis Scientia could have spent more time together one-on-one.)

“Good,” Cor remarked. “Now, try that same plucking pattern on another chord.”

He positioned Ignis’ fingers for another simple chord, then signaled for him to try again. Ignis moved between the two chords effortlessly, while doing the plucking pattern that Cor had taught.

Then, to Cor’s surprise, started plucking a different pattern.

His left hand deviated from the two chords Cor had taught, as well. He started plucking in _scale_.

And his fingers moved so strongly, so confidently, the notes he drew out of the old guitar rang out through the clearing.

Cor’s mouth was hanging open. He hurriedly shut it as the last note faded.

...Of course the strategic adviser to the Crown Prince knew how to play musical instruments.

And, of course, he was actually better than Cor.

“I,” Cor muttered apologetically, “shouldn’t have presumed you were a beginner.”

“I’m sorry,” Ignis said sheepishly. “I had no intention of misleading you. In the Citadel, I received comprehensive instruction in various artistic pursuits.”

Cor didn’t know what to say. He knew Ignis couldn’t see him, but he was still embarrassed. He had been careless, and potentially offensive to a guest.

So he just let Ignis talk. His sense of decorum was likely going to prevent him from laying into Cor for being an insensitive prick...but it also seemed that there was something he needed to get off his chest, and the least Cor could do was not get in the way of that.

As he studied the shape of the guitar with his hands, Ignis continued, “My lifetime role has been to play ‘second fiddle’ to the crown prince. So I foolishly believed, as a child, that it was my job to learn things faster than Noct could. As he expressed interest in one instrument after another, I took lessons in each one, just to be a little ahead of him, to guide him through his own education.” He smiled sadly. “And then, of course, he _lost_ interest in one instrument after another. Mainly because, and I quote, he wanted to ‘find something I couldn’t ruin for him.’ ”

Cor moved to stand beside Ignis. He wanted to see the younger man’s face as they conversed.

“And,” Cor asked, “did he find it?”

Ignis nodded. “He did. In fishing. He was sixteen.”

Cor paused.

“I taught him how to fish when he was sixteen,” he remembered aloud.

Ignis chuckled softly. “i am aware.”

Cor’s sigh now was one of genuine frustration. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel like I should apologize to you again...”

“There’s no need,” Ignis assured him. “I’m happy that Noct found something to enjoy by himself. Growing up as royalty means that’s not something you have a lot of.”

 _But growing up_ alongside _royalty means the same thing,_ Cor wanted to argue. He knew it too well.

He just didn’t see a need to reopen old wounds with Ignis. The scars of childhood had scabbed over, for the both of them.

But it was clear that the King meant a lot to Ignis. They had been friends, after all. Brothers in all but blood.

The pain of parting might have been fresher than it had been for Cor, when he lost Regis and Clarus on the same day, so long ago.

“Besides,” Ignis light-heartedly continued, “you only _taught_ him how to fish. I’m blaming the entire Amicitia clan for stealing him away on weekends to fish, when he was supposed to be studying with his tutors.” He smirked at the memory. “I suppose it was some consolation that they sneaked in some combat practice along the way...”

“But _you_ know how to fish, right?”

(The question caught Ignis off-guard. It mentally brought him back to the first few weeks after Noct’s disappearance - when the very first thing he thought of doing was to go fishing.

(While there was still so much sunlight left in the world. While he could still remember how happy Noct looked after a challenging catch.

(He never quite mastered fishing. He only did it because he imagined that it brought him closer to Noct. He stopped, as soon as the realization of that sank in.)

“I have a basic knowledge,” Ignis answered truthfully.

“Then I have to teach you a few advanced tricks.”

Ignis smiled shyly. “I shouldn’t impose...”

“No imposition. It’s a survival skill, if you have to be out in the field a lot. Food has become scarce, and may become scarcer.”

It seemed Ignis understood what Cor was saying. He nodded soberly.

“Besides,” Cor continued, “I’ve long ago accepted that I might not have been born to save the world, but I was born to teach the ones who are.” He touched the guitar Ignis was still holding. “And maybe you can teach this old dog some new tricks, as well?”

Ignis smiled now. Really smiled.

And a smile like that, by the light of the fireflies and the summer moon, felt to Cor like the last thing that such a beautiful night was missing.

“I have a feeling I’ll be learning far more from you,” Ignis admitted. “But I’d like that...Cor.”

**Author's Note:**

> I imagined Cor was playing something mellow and repetitive, along the lines of “Pussywillows, Cattails” by Kenny Rankin. Then Ignis surprises him with something like the opening riff of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” xD


End file.
